'05 Annual Performance Review: Albert Einstein

Instructions: Please complete each part of each question and discuss with the employee during the performance review meeting.

PART 1: JOB DEFINITION

Describe the employee's duties and responsibilities and indicate the relative priorities of key elements.

This is a patent office, Albert. Your job is to transform written
patent applications into clear and precise language, and to study
applications and pick out the new ideas of an invention. These are
the priorities. Where does it say that your priorities are
rewriting the rules of the
Universe, unifying space and time, unifying radiation and matter,
or demonstrating the existence of atoms?

Describe any
changes that have occurred in the employee's job since his or her last
performance discussion.

PART III: PERFORMANCE SUMMARY

List aspects of the employee's approach that contribute to his or her effectiveness.

Albert does a good job of processing patent applications. He seems
to enjoy his work and have a competence for it. I put him down for "excellent" at
"analyzes facts and reaches logical conclusions" -- no problem there, we can all agree.

However this year he seems
to have devoted much of his time to publishing a series of outside papers.
While this is not the primary responsibility of his position,
I have to say he has done reasonably well in this respect:

In April, your PhD dissertation A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions
measured the size of atoms (and also Avogadro's number), making the theory of atoms more concrete, particularly the kinetic theory of heat, based on an analysis of data
about solutions of sugar in water. While atoms had been proposed 2500 years ago and were widely believed in, you helped provide evidence for them.

In June, On the electrodynamics of moving bodies introduces what
you call the special theory of relativity that shows that there is no distinguished
state of rest in the Universe, and no one distinguished notion of time; rather that time and motion are relative to the observer.

Regrettably, I had to put you down as "poor" for "works well with others"
and "shares credit appropriately." You had no co-authors on your five papers,
and your citations were quite skimpy: no citations at all in your June and September paper,
only one citation in your April paper, and not much better on the others. You wrote
that your special theory of relativity came to you after a discussion with your friend Michele Besso. But you didn't even acknowledge him in your June paper. This
is an area for improvement.

On the other hand, famous physicists are beginning to visit the offices here in Bern;
Albert you must make sure that any hours spent in talking to them are subtracted
from your time card and made up for later. You are responsible for making
sure these visits do not cause a distraction for others in the office.

In addition, I would have to say your output, while at times quite
extraordinary, has been inconsistent. In Q1 you managed to publish one paper
in the final two weeks of the quarter. In Q2 you improved productivity, with
your dissertation in April, the Brownian Motion paper in May, and the
Special Relativity paper in June. Not bad for a quarter, not bad at all.
But then you seemed to slump: you did finish one paper 3 days before the
close of Q3, but it was only 3 pages long. I admit that some reviewers
did find it noteworthy, but really, couldn't it have been
the conclusion of your June paper? It almost seems like you held it back just to have something to show for Q3. (This flippant, almost disrespectful attitude is also
evident in your dissertation: when told by your respected thesis committee that
your thesis
was too short, you added one sentence.) And then in Q4 -- no publications at all.

You wrote that "A storm broke out in my mind" this year. Let me remind you
that our Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) covers up to three psychiatric treatments,
should you find them necessary.

You seem to lack a flare for self-promotion. Lucky for us our PR department
stepped in and changed your L/c2 equation into the much
more marketable E = mc2.

Is the employee ready for increased responsibility? If yes, please explain.

Based on his performance as a patent clerk, I cannot recommend Albert for a promotion
at this time.

Does the employee require additional training? If yes, please explain.

First, congratulations for completing your doctoral dissertation in
April. (Make sure you fill out form EDUR-4 to be reimbursed for a portion of your tuition.) I was impressed that Prof. Alfred Kleiner wrote that "Herr Einstein has provided evidence that he is capable of occupying himself successfully with scientific problems." So clearly, you need no more
formal education.

However, based on your file photo below, I would suggest you sign up for
the "Dress for Success" class. Really: a striped shirt with a plaid suit?